Clip Art Sizing Difficulties

Recently WordTips subscriber Kathleen Winters wrote about a problem she was having with a particular computer in their high school computer lab. It seems that the computer won't allow anyone to enlarge clipart within a Word document, even though it can be done on the other machines.

One reader suggested that the clipart be selected and cut from the document. Then, use the Paste Special option from the Edit menu to reinsert the image as a Picture. ("Picture" is a specific object type that can be selected in the Paste Special dialog box.) Sometimes this can "reset" internal pointers so the image can be resized as expected.

If that doesn't do the trick, the problem can probably be traced to one of two possibilities. First, the machine could have a virus. The only way to correct that is to make sure the virus checker is up to date and remove any viruses detected.

The second potential cause of the problem is that there is some conflict between the various device drivers used by Word. For instance, there could be some problem with the display driver or the printer driver, and the problem is only manifested in Word.

To correct this situation, visit the Web sites for the various manufacturers of the devices in the system. You should be able to find the latest device drivers at the sites, and then update your system. Word is fairly unusual in that it relies on a combination of both display and printer driver information to determine what is shown or can be done on screen. If all the pieces aren't working right, then Word won't work as expected, either.